The present invention relates to gowns and other garments, specifically to surgical gowns. Specifically the present invention relates to mechanically enhanced self-donning gowns that permit the wearers to don the gown without the assistance of others while ensuring that the sterility of the gown and the hands of the wearers of the gown are not compromised during the donning process.
The inventor is a medical surgeon with 15 years experience who understands and appreciates the importance of maintaining a sterile environment in the operating room. A sterile surgical environment is of paramount importance in order to limit the possibility of infection and other complications; for this reason, surgeons have long since worn traditional surgical gowns and limited the number persons in the operation room when performing operations on patients.
The traditional surgical gown is sterile, delivered in a sterilized package, and requires the assistance of another in order for the wearer to don the gown. This is so because the traditional surgical gown has an opening in the back of the gown that can only be closed from behind. As the back of the gown is outside the region typically referred to as the “sterile zone” the wearer of the gown cannot reach behind to close the gown without the assistance of others as doing so would require the wearer to reach behind and place her hands in a non-sterile environment thereby defeating the purpose of wearing a sterilized gown in the first place.
As such, a disadvantage of using a traditional surgical gown is that an additional person is needed to don the gown, this not only crowds an already congested area, but it requires the person donning the gown to use precious time that could be directed to the patient's needs.
In order to address the problems of the traditional surgical gown, the inventor invented the present invention, specifically a mechanically enhanced self-donning gown that permits the wearer to don the gown without the assistance of another person while ensuring that the sterility of the gown and the hands of the wearer of the gown are not compromised during the donning process. The present invention comprises essentially of a gown body, a closure element, and a mechanical self-donning mechanism.
An objective of the present invention, is to provide a gown that can be donned without the assistance of another person.
Another objective of the present invention, is to provide a gown that can be donned without the wearer of the gown to place her hands outside the “sterile zone.”
Another objective of the present invention, is to provide a gown that can be donned in a time efficient manner.
Yet a further objective of the present invention, is to provide a self-donning gown that is cost efficient to produce.
For the foregoing reasons there exists a need for a mechanically enhanced self-donning gowns that permits the wearer to don the gown without the assistance of another person while ensuring that the sterility of the gown and the hands of the wearer of the gown is not compromised during the donning process.